Looking back at the variety show market in 2021, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, cultural variety shows are the brightest new stars of the year. Although it is not a new category that appeared out of thin air, the situation of cultural variety shows in the past was greatly changed in this year. From the opening year of "Tang Palace Night Banquet" and "China in the Classics", to the new exploration of "The Most Beautiful Central Axis" and "Ten Thousand Miles of Single Riding", from the steady and steady play of the third season of "Shangxin • Forbidden City", to the promotion of "National Treasures • Exhibition season", as well as "Dance Millennium", "China in Calligraphy and Painting", "Myo Ink Chinese Heart" and other new programs echo each other, cultural variety shows have returned to the tide.
The "Chinese Festivals" series went out of the circle, triggering a sustained cultural fever
If the most unmissable cultural programs in 2021, the "China Festivals" series of Henan Satellite TV that runs throughout the year is a topic that cannot be bypassed. Starting from the Spring Festival Gala in early 2021, Henan Satellite TV has carried out a drastic transformation of the traditional evening party, with the theme of "Chinese Festival" as the theme, from the Spring Festival to the Lantern Festival, from the Dragon Boat Festival to the Qingming, every major Chinese festival has brought a special program "Fantastic Tour" series. Through the combination of traditional Chinese festivals and folklore introduced by the program and different art disciplines, a number of out-of-the-loop passages such as "Tang Palace Night Banquet", "Underwater Flying", "Dragon Gate King Kong" and so on are created.
From the perspective of program production, "Chinese Festival" does not have a bright star lineup, nor does it lack the technical background of large-scale production, and the program effect of "four or two strokes of thousand pounds" is largely derived from the accurate expression of the modernization of traditional culture. The continuous update of the "China Festival" series and the popularity of the whole people have also made tv people more clear about the prospects of cultural variety shows, which has also indirectly contributed to the blowout of CCTV cultural variety shows this year.
Since the China Central Radio and Television Corporation launched the "Chinese Character Dictation Conference," the "Chinese Poetry Conference," and the "Readership" in previous years, in recent years it has continued to launch phenomenal cultural programs such as "National Treasures," "Classic Chants Circulating," and "China in Stories." Beijing Satellite TV has "copied" the successful experience of "Shangxin, the Forbidden City," and has successively launched programs such as "Meeting the Temple of Heaven," "The Great Wall," "China in Calligraphy and Painting," and "The Most Beautiful Central Axis," and continued to tap Beijing's unique cultural resources Zhejiang Satellite TV borrowed former Palace Museum President Shan Jixiang to launch "Ten Thousand Miles to Ride Alone" to reveal China's cultural heritage sites, Jiangsu Satellite TV launched "Home from the End of the Yangtze River" to explore the Yangtze River; Henan Satellite TV and Station B also jointly launched the dance culture variety show "Dance Millennium", which is to dig deeper into the essence and meaning of Chinese dance culture.
Innovate the form of variety shows and dig deep into the charm of culture
The outbreak of cultural variety shows in 2021, on the one hand, with the help of the entire entertainment field to return to the mainstream value orientation. On the other hand, it is also inseparable from the deep cultivation and re-creation of cultural categories by variety artists. In the view of Peng Kan, a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Arts and Media at Beijing Normal University, "Not good cultural programs often take the high-cold route, and the creators may feel that their content style is very high, but the audience feels that it is out of reach." A really good cultural program should allow the audience to apply the knowledge and spiritual nutrients obtained from the program to their own lives, so as to produce a sense of resonance and be willing to follow and disseminate the program. ”
The innovation of form and expression can be traced in every cultural variety show that has been a hit this year. CCTV's "China in the Story" integrates artistic techniques such as film and television, drama, and variety shows, and through the multi-stage space, presents the excellent realist literary and artistic works in the 70 years since the founding of New China, which not only coincides with the original, but also conforms to the contemporary aesthetics. Since the three seasons of "National Treasure", it has continued to borrow the performance ability of excellent actors, and modernized the ancient cultural relics and legends, so that the national treasure can "speak". "China in the Classics" is about ancient books, which are more obscure than other cultural forms, and the program has found a new foothold, which will "personify" the dialogue between ancient and modern times, and also "personify" the ideas of the book, turning the classics into stories with emotion and temperature.
In the view of Feng Zheng, the general director of "Dance Millennium", "the field of television is not as good as a new, novelty is very important, and it is never possible to be a follower forever." If we adopt the existing variety show model, we have started later than others, and we do not have much money, and it is difficult to leave a deep memory point for the audience. "Dance Millennium" chooses to subvert the performance mode of dance variety shows in the past, integrates dance, variety shows, film and television into one, invites well-known dance troupes across the country to participate, combines dance live performances with historical stories, and connects them into a narrative structure of film and television dramas, which also brings subversive innovation of dance programs.
Young people spontaneously "Amway" and link up with cultural creativity
The popularity of cultural programs this year is inseparable from the participation of young people. "National Treasures", "Chinese Festivals" series and the "out of the circle" of many cultural variety shows are disseminated through the website where young people are located, and the young people's network community represented by Station B has even become an "important town" for the dissemination of cultural variety shows.
After Henan Satellite TV tested the "Wonderful Tour" series for the first time at the Spring Festival Gala, it paid special attention to the feedback of young netizens in the launch of follow-up programs. The program itself is the broadcast mode of the first network background, B station and Youku priority live broadcast, there are a large number of short videos split the classic clips for the whole network to spread, even the four characters in the "Dragon Boat Wonderful Tour" "Tang Xiaomei" are the whole network issued a collection order to recruit ordinary actors, layer by layer selection. Including the name of "Tang Xiaomei", it was collected by online voting, and the script was also brainstormed through the submission of netizens.
The three seasons of "National Treasure" can continue to "go out of the circle", and it is inseparable from the emphasis on the reputation of young people. The program group took the B station as the platform for the key broadcast of the program, and the general director of the program also took the initiative to go to the B station to leave a message to communicate with netizens, and also took the initiative to absorb the opinions of some netizens in the process of content creation, attracting many young people to join the team of secondary creation, helping the program to continue to expand its influence.
In order to strengthen the follow-up dissemination of the program, the cultural variety shows that have the advantages of cultural and bo have also moved the advantages of IP from the screen to the offline. "Shangxin · Forbidden City" opened the mode of cultural and creative linkage early in the morning, and the cultural and creative products developed in the program directly started the reservation system for sales, and the reservation crowdfunding amount of only one pajama was as high as 3 million yuan. Since the launch of "National Treasure" for three seasons, it has developed a number of cultural and creative products, and related online shopping malls have also opened hot. After the "China Festival" series of Henan Satellite TV was broadcast, it also led to the cultural and creative products of the Henan Provincial Museum to become "net red", "archaeological blind box", "Yubo net red coffee", "coin chocolate" and other cultural and creative products all over the Internet. Just on December 16, the first 3D version of the Henan Museum's digital cultural creation "Women's Good Owl Zun" was officially launched, and it was instantly empty of seconds.
【Memorabilia】
On January 31, Zhejiang Satellite TV launched the interactive documentary program "Ten Thousand Miles to Ride Alone", led by Shan Jixiang, former director of the Palace Museum, to visit 12 World Heritage Sites with a group of celebrity guests, exchange with local humanities scholars, heritage experts, etc., and reveal the story behind China's World Heritage Sites.
On February 10, the 2021 Henan Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala was broadcast, innovatively transforming the traditional evening form, connecting traditional cultural programs in the mode of network drama, and the song and dance program "Tang Palace Night Banquet" was "out of the circle" of the whole network. In the subsequent lantern, Qingming, Dragon Boat Festival, Qixi, Mid-Autumn Festival, Chongyang and other traditional festivals, Henan Satellite TV has launched a series of "Chinese Festivals" programs.
On February 12, CCTV launched the large-scale cultural program "China in the Classics", which tells the origin, circulation and shining stories of classics in the 5,000-year history through the innovative form of time-space dialogue and the expression method of "drama + film and television".
On July 3, Beijing Satellite TV launched the cultural music competition reality show "The Most Beautiful Central Axis", showing the historical significance and cultural connotation of Beijing's central axis, excavating the historical and cultural stories behind it, passing on the culture of Beijing's central axis through the sound of music, and helping Beijing's central axis to apply for heritage.
On November 6th, Station B and Henan Satellite TV jointly launched the new dance variety show "Dance Millennium", in which 5 recommended dancers and 13 top dance troupes toured the Four Dynasties together to write the book "Twelve Winds Dance History" with a strange dance, jointly telling the Chinese story contained in the dance.